Challenges of Teaching Students With EBD, Research Paper Example

Introduction

The field of education is a very responsible and strategically important aspect of human life as it lays the foundations of intelligence, intellectual development and professionalism, shaping the future of all individuals. Nonetheless, there are students with disabilities and disorders who experience hardships in education and thus need a specific approach and attitude, special ways of instruction etc. One of such groups is the one of students with EBD – emotional and behavioral disorders. They are characterized by emotional instability, challenging behavior and resistance to change. Consequently, once placed in the regular classroom, they may experience challenges with studies and pose threat and problems for other students as well as the teacher. However, it is essential to remember that the EBD students have equal rights and opportunities with other children; they only need a specific approach to instruction and assessment, as well as some specific patterns for establishing student-teacher relationships. There is a set of prevention and intervention techniques that may help reduce the tension and discrepancies in the attitude and behavior of students in the classroom; to apply them effectively, a set of challenges with diagnosing, teaching and treating students with EBD have to be understood and constructively met.

Creation of a Team, Identification of Expertise Areas

The prevention and intervention team that will be called the special education (SPED) team has to include the following members (at least one of each):  a special educator, a regular educator, an administrator and a parent. The reason for such inclusion is that the students with EBD are affected on various levels of their social interaction. Hence, it is the responsibility of each of mentioned individuals to create a comprehensive program of intervention and to ensure mutual support and coherence in actions.

A special educator is essential in the team because his/her area of expertise lies specifically within the field of handling students with EBD. He/she may advise some constructive techniques for parents to implement at home, or may detect the home problem that has to be solved at first, with the further continuation of intervention at school; it is true that no educator can help a student with EBD if the emotional disorder occurs because of family problems (Chaplain, 2003). In addition, a proper combination of special education intervention techniques in the overall school policy will help substantially reduce the threat of school risk factors for the EBD students.

The regular educator is needed in the team because of the vital importance of the primary prevention policies in every educational setting. Students with EBD are not always diagnosed before their coming to school, as symptoms may occur in the school setting already (Yell et al., 2009). Hence, the first staff member who will deal with the problem will be the regular teacher. He/she has to possess the basic knowledge of treating students with EBD, teaching them self-management and self-control techniques to be applied on a daily basis in the classroom (Mayer, Von Acker, & Lochman, 2008). It is only when the techniques do not work and the student’s state worsens that he will need a special education class.

The school administrator is an essential member of the team because he/she is the engine for school policy formation. First of all, it is necessary to eliminate the zero-tolerance and ambiguous rules of behavior from the school policy, as they threaten the emotional and behavioral stability of EBD students who feel discriminated. Secondly, the administrator is able to empower the educators in following the IDEA regulations and conducting relevant assessments, designing special educational programming etc. (Yell et al., 2009).

Finally, parents have to be the active members of the team for several reasons as well. First of all, they possess the fullest information about the essence of their children’s disorders. Secondly, as it was noted by Illback and Nelson (1996) , the wraparound approach is destructive for students, and it is essential to include parents in the early intervention stages before the institutional placement actually occurs. More than that, parents and family problems are often the primary cause of the EBD, so the school administration and special education staff may help solve the home problems, thus getting to the roots of the problem.

Diagnostic Concerns in Defining EBD, Challenges in Provision of Services for Students with EBD

As it follows from the work of Yell et al. (2009), there is a set of diagnostic concerns that complicate the work of special educators and school administration on the way to meeting the special educational needs of EBD students. The first concern is about stigmas and ambiguity of terms in the definitions of EBD, lack of understanding what the inappropriate behavior is, how strong the inability to build social relationships and the learning disability should be to classify as EBD (Yell et al., 2009). It is even not clear what the sustainable period of time of the disorder occurrence means; hence, it is more appropriate to follow the proper classification of Yell et al. (2009) and consider the long period of time as more than 6 months, and the inappropriate behavior as the one that does not fit into any cultural, religious and ethical norms of the society at a given moment of time.

One more diagnostic concern is in the classification of students according to the type of disorders they have: here the instruments are the psychiatric classification (including anxiety disorders, mood disorder etc.) and dimensional disorders (externalizing and internalizing behaviors) 9Yell et al., 2009). However, the classification is also not ideal as the EBD students may show signs of several disorder types, and internalizing EBD behaviors may sometimes take the forms of suicide or violence, which is already the externalizing practice. Hence, it is hard to create a firm diagnosis for EBD students because of the changeability of their symptoms (Yell et al., 2009).

Challenges in teaching students with EBD are also multiple and require different competencies from the teachers. Since EBD students have the academic, language and social skills deficit, lower academic outcomes and intellectual abilities, it is hard for the educator to fit his/her mainstream educational competencies and pace of schooling with other children into their specific needs. Low rates of appraisal and lack of opportunities educators give to students play a decisive role in the emergence of their aggression. Hence, self-control, classroom management practices and training have to become the daily practice with students who have the EBD. Teachers have to adjust to the specific needs of students and give them proper instructional interactions, actively interact with parents and get actively involved in the collection of data on EBD students’ progress, developing special education programs and interpret EBD students’ results according to the assessment rules designed for them in order to provide these special needs students with adequate instruction and support (Yell et al., 2009).

Conclusion

Students with EBD represent a group of students with specific needs, and the whole school community (not only special educators) has to realize the need of early intervention and prevention in working with EBD students. The active involvement of parents in the prevention and intervention programs will help eliminate the domestic risk factor and create a comprehensive school- and home-based intervention plan. The participation of administration will help solve the major challenge of exclusion of EBD students from the mainstream zero-tolerance school policy.

The multifaceted attention to the different types of EBD, varying occurrences of anti-social behaviors and numerous causes of their occurrence will help solve the challenge of building the trusting teacher-student relationships that are vital for the introduction of self-management and self-control techniques for EBD students. Surely, there is much legal incongruence about EBD students, which mostly comes from ambiguity of terminology and vagueness of approach to them. However, there is a hope that the innovative definition will be accepted soon, which will eliminate the stigma and misinterpretation from the legal recognition of EBD students and will open new ways for primary and secondary prevention and intervention measures.

EBD student behavior is usually unpredictable and unexplainable, which constitutes the challenge for dealing with him or her and fitting their needs. However, a deeper investigation of roots and causes of EBD, extensive work on the improvement of EBD students’ classification etc. are likely to solve the problems. As it comes from the composition of the special education team, it is impossible to construct an effective intervention program in case such parties as the family, the teaching staff and the school administration are conflicting. Hence, they need to adopt a common strategy in meeting the educational challenges for EBD students.

References

Chaplain, R. (2003). Teaching without disruption in secondary school: a model for managing pupil behavior. New York: Routledge.

Illback, R.J., & Nelson, C.M. (1996). Emerging school-based approaches for children with emotional and behavioral problems: research and practice in service integration. New York: Routledge.

Mayer, M.J., Van Acker, R., & Lochman, J.E. (2008). Cognitive-Behavioral Interventions for Emotional and Behavioral Disorders: School-Based Practice. New York: Guilford Press.

Yell, M.L., Meadows, N.B., Drasgow, E., & Shriner, J.G. (2009). Evidence-Based Practices for Educating Students with Emotional and Behavioral Disorders. London: Pearson Education.